Tom, did you get a golden sample? My RS50 greyscale was off by quite a bit and the gamma is off as well. I will post the before scan tonight so others can / evaluate.

Tom's results look like classic "out of the box" greyscale results, which is what you would expect as it was out of the box. After 100 hours, the red would have dropped and it would no longer look like that.

Tom's results look like classic "out of the box" greyscale results, which is what you would expect as it was out of the box. After 100 hours, the red would have dropped and it would no longer look like that.

This new RS50 I just received after sending back the RS40 can't have more than 15-20 hours on the bulb so far. With the 6500k setting, normal color space you can see the color isn't right just with the eye. The meter reading show red is down quite a bit on 30 & 80 IRE readings.

This new RS50 I just received after sending back the RS40 can't have more than 15-20 hours on the bulb so far. With the 6500k setting, normal color space you can see the color isn't right just with the eye. The meter reading show red is down quite a bit on 30 & 80 IRE readings.

I post some readings later if you guys wouldn't mind taking a look.

Well every bulb varies. But even in the first 10-15 hours red can drop quite a bit. Nevertheless, the important thing is you can make it right

BTW, I wanted to explain one discrepancy in my results. I report 32.49 cd/m2 at 100% but 13.9 fL peak output (32.49 would be less than 10 fL).

The peak output is based on a calculation from the lumens reading. The screen in question needs cleaning and is not living up to its 1.3 gain spec.

As for the one I looked at being a "golden" sample, I can't say. It was what it was. I have noticed, after working on quite a few earlier generation JVCs, a considerable amount of unit-to-unit variation, especially in gamma response.

I'm confused about something. From looking at where red is on the CIE chart I would expect that the difference between that and REC.709 red would be fairly visible on some material, but the deltaE is shown as 2.4 before and 2.0 after. I recall hearing that anything less than 3.0 shouldn't be visible, but I'm not sure if that is supposed to apply to this. Can you shed any light on that? Do you think having the red that far out would be visible with any material (like Cars)?

EDIT: I see that the luminance value is almost spot on, so maybe the difference between that red and having red at REC.709 wouldn't be visible.

Thanks,
Darin

This is the AV Science Forum. Please don't be gullible and please do remember the saying, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

Do you think you could measure the full saturation scale using HCFR and the AVSHD REC.709 calibration disc and post the resulting chart? There are 30 points total. I am very interested to see how the color saturation tracks at lower saturation levels.

If the color saturation tracks decently in the lower saturation range, I may look towards one of these JVC RS40's to replace or add to my current projector.

Dan

Below is the CIE for the Saturations in Film Mode, 6500K and Normal Gamma. As a side note, thanks Dan for your Epson calibration thread as I found it most useful after I got my 6500UB two years ago and ended up using your approach for calibration using the 75% saturation levels with great results. The RS40 looks more linear for the saturation levels than did the Epson.

In my opinion, this should be one of the shortest calibration threads on AVS. The RS40 performs remarkably well out of the box.

Thanks for posting this up Tom. It's nice to see the full calibration report rather than just the cie triangle which confirms that the colour gamut is close enough (at least on your example) to manage without a CMS. I take it you had no need to adjust the service menu CMS to achieve this reading your comments about what you adjusted to achieve this?

[quote=TomHuffman;19859593]BTW, I wanted to explain one discrepancy in my results. I report 32.49 cd/m2 at 100% but 13.9 fL peak output (32.49 would be less than 10 fL).

The peak output is based on a calculation from the lumens reading. The screen in question needs cleaning and is not living up to its 1.3 gain spec.

As for the one I looked at being a "golden" sample, I can't say. It was what it was. I have noticed, after working on quite a few earlier generation JVCs, a considerable amount of unit-to-unit variation, especially in gamma response.[/QUOTE]

I can certainly agree that the gamma can have a lot of unit-to-unit variation. Below is my factory default gamma (set to normal mode) and the 2nd curve after I worked on creating a custom gamma (it took me about an hour to get it to this point). I still plan to work on the custom gamma some more by perhaps going into the gamma adjustments the individual primary colors, rather than just adjusting for white.

The problem I have with the gamma adjustments is that even though they look right with a meter and calibration software, it may be a completely different animal with normal viewing material. I've done several custom curves with the RS40 and even though all of them looked great in Calman after hours of tweaking, program material would have bizarre issues that weren't there before like bizarre banding, colors and digital noise.

Below is the CIE for the Saturations in Film Mode, 6500K and Normal Gamma. As a side note, thanks Dan for your Epson calibration thread as I found it most useful after I got my 6500UB two years ago and ended up using your approach for calibration using the 75% saturation levels with great results. The RS40 looks more linear for the saturation levels than did the Epson.

Thanks for doing these measurements! Yes, much more linear saturation than the Epson LCD projectors lately. This all make me wonder why all projector manufacturers don't have at least one preset that is targeted at a correct REC.709 gamut? Weird. This RS40 is looking very good for such limited CMS control. If you can recall, how do the blacks compare on this RS40 to your old 6500UB (with or without the dynamic iris engaged on the 6500UB). I'm very curious about this.

As a side note regarding Gamma, and the unit to unit variation. Correct contrast and black level settings are critical when taking initial gamma measurement results. You must set contrast and brightness correctly before taking gamma measurements. If you have contrast set too high, and start to clip the bright windows, you can see a gamma curve like you show as your factory default where the bright windows measure very low gamma values. (at least in the 50-100% area)

The problem I have with the gamma adjustments is that even though they look right with a meter and calibration software, it may be a completely different animal with normal viewing material. I've done several custom curves with the RS40 and even though all of them looked great in Calman after hours of tweaking, program material would have bizarre issues that weren't there before like bizarre banding, colors and digital noise.

Quote:

Originally Posted by stereomandan

Thanks for doing these measurements! Yes, much more linear saturation than the Epson LCD projectors lately. This all make me wonder why all projector manufacturers don't have at least one preset that is targeted at a correct REC.709 gamut? Weird. This RS40 is looking very good for such limited CMS control. If you can recall, how do the blacks compare on this RS40 to your old 6500UB (with or without the dynamic iris engaged on the 6500UB). I'm very curious about this.

As a side note regarding Gamma, and the unit to unit variation. Correct contrast and black level settings are critical when taking initial gamma measurement results. You must set contrast and brightness correctly before taking gamma measurements. If you have contrast set too high, and start to clip the bright windows, you can see a gamma curve like you show as your factory default where the bright windows measure very low gamma values. (at least in the 50-100% area)

Dan - I did use the brightness and contrast controls to calibrate for reference black and white before I measured the gamma.

Also one real concern I have with my projector is even it I can create a custom gamma settings that work well for 2D viewing, for 3D mode the RS40 only has 2 presets (A and B) that can be used and there is nothing that can be done to improve them.

Dan - I did use the brightness and contrast controls to calibrate for reference black and white before I measured the gamma.

Also one real concern I have with my projector is even it I can create a custom gamma settings that work well for 2D viewing, for 3D mode the RS40 only has 2 presets (A and B) that can be used and there is nothing that can be done to improve them.

Sorry Ron, wasn't trying to imply that you had contrast and brightness set wrong, just stating what I've seen before with my own measurements in the past. Mainly on plasma and LCD TV's, but the same could easily happen with these front projectors.

A bummer about the preset gamma in 3D. Hopefully JVC will come out with a fimware change that will allow cusotm gamma in 3D.

Did you see my comment about 6500UB black level vs the RS40? Very curious about that. Thanks.

I'm confused about something. From looking at where red is on the CIE chart I would expect that the difference between that and REC.709 red would be fairly visible on some material, but the deltaE is shown as 2.4 before and 2.0 after. I recall hearing that anything less than 3.0 shouldn't be visible, but I'm not sure if that is supposed to apply to this. Can you shed any light on that? Do you think having the red that far out would be visible with any material (like Cars)?

Darin, The error standard for the 1994 color difference formula is different. I like to see 1.5 or below for color.

However, I too was surprised by this result, but I double-checked it and this is correct. So, according to this metric, the red primary is worth fixing, but only just.

A bummer about the preset gamma in 3D. Hopefully JVC will come out with a fimware change that will allow cusotm gamma in 3D.

I wouldn't hold my breath. The RS40 is working-as-designed (some might say broken-as-designed) with limited 3D adjustments and no CMS. It was also significantly cheaper than the RS50, which provides more features. JVC's answer would be to get an RS50.

Most will live in bliss with the RS40, while some opt for the RS50. For me, the choice was easy in getting a great deal on the RS40 and using the money saved on an external Lumagen VP that will last me long after I upgrade PJs again.

...Steve"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people." - V

I wouldn't hold my breath. The RS40 is working-as-designed (some might say broken-as-designed) with limited 3D adjustments and no CMS. It was also significantly cheaper than the RS50, which provides more features. JVC's answer would be to get an RS50.

Most will live in bliss with the RS40, while some opt for the RS50. For me, the choice was easy in getting a great deal on the RS40 and using the money saved on an external Lumagen VP that will last me long after I upgrade PJs again.

Can't argue with you there. The RS40 Lumagen combo is a great combo and almost future proof since you can keep the Lumagen for CMS and easy gamma on any projector.

Sorry Ron, wasn't trying to imply that you had contrast and brightness set wrong, just stating what I've seen before with my own measurements in the past. Mainly on plasma and LCD TV's, but the same could easily happen with these front projectors.

A bummer about the preset gamma in 3D. Hopefully JVC will come out with a fimware change that will allow cusotm gamma in 3D.

Did you see my comment about 6500UB black level vs the RS40? Very curious about that. Thanks.

Dan

As for black level, with the Epson's dynamic iris turned off the JVC has better black levels. With the Epson's DI turned on I would say it's black level in very dark scenes is in the same ball park as the RS40. However the JVC is putting out overall a brighter picture. Also the DI on my Epson made a lot of noise that I found objectionable and you could see the DI working from time to time.

Thanks for the reply. I don't want this to get off topic, so this will be my last reply about your previous Epson vs. the JVC. Great info! I don't use the dynamic iris on my Epson 1080UB due to the brightness compression effect, and because I can see the brightness changing as the iris is working. Going by your comments, the JVC would be leaps and bounds better than the 1080UB without the iris on (regarding black level). Thanks. ...don't know if I could handle not having a full CMS to play around with though. Now that you are done with your calibration on the JVC, how does the color accuracy look with actual Blu-ray material? Does it leave you wanting in any way?

I just wanted to comment about the use of 'Normal' gamma as a base: I don't know why it was called 'Normal' as JVC seem to have picked the worst curve possible to give this name. I've noticed many new owners seem to use this setting, but I can only assume it's purely because of the name, so they think it must be the correct setting to use...

Out of the box I believe A or B would be much closer to 2.2 to start with, though I've always used a default custom gamma of 2.3 myself as I prefer a slightly higher gamma in my room. Of course anyone that is going to calibrate fully would probably use a custom gamma anyway I guess, but the above is more for those who haven't got round to calibrating yet (or are waiting for the hours to build up first).

Thanks for the reply. I don't want this to get off topic, so this will be my last reply about your previous Epson vs. the JVC. Great info! I don't use the dynamic iris on my Epson 1080UB due to the brightness compression effect, and because I can see the brightness changing as the iris is working. Going by your comments, the JVC would be leaps and bounds better than the 1080UB without the iris on (regarding black level). Thanks. ...don't know if I could handle not having a full CMS to play around with though. Now that you are done with your calibration on the JVC, how does the color accuracy look with actual Blu-ray material? Does it leave you wanting in any way?

Dan

The RS40 colors look good, but I have not watched a lot of 2D programming since I did my initial calibration just a few days ago. I haven't attempted to do any calibraton for 3D mode except for reference black and white levels, and most of my viewing so far has been some of the 3D blu-rays I had purchased in advance of receiving my RS40. So I need a couple of weeks with some more 2D Blu-ray viewing on the RS40 before I come to any conclusion on the color accuracy vs. the Epson 7500.

On another subject: When I was adjusting the contrast to set the reference white level in 3D mode, I did notice one odd thing. I first used the test patterns on the AVS disc to set white level and black level (i.e., with the flashing bars). Then I displayed the individual red, blue and green reference test patterns and saw that I had to significantly reduce the contrast further in order to prevent the red from going into saturation at too low a level. I had to reduce contrast to around -12 setting to get the 235 red bar to display correctly. We only have two gamma choices for 3D mode and this was with gamma set for a brighter image.

When new, this PJ was bright enough for a 110" StudioTek in the low lamp mode, but most will probably want to put it into high lamp mode and then adjust the iris as the lamp ages. I got about 650 lumens in the High lamp mode.

I realize there as SO many factors that dictate lumen output, but on high lamp, new? Even under not so favorable conditions, doesn't 650 still seem low?

Many thanks to Buttabean for allowing me to check out his RS40. We had a great time today calibrating it.

It is really good out of the box. If Buttabean approves, I can post charts of what we did to it later.

I wouldn't have touched the greyscale. We did because the gamma was a little off. We dialed in a custom gamma of 2.3. The controls are much better than the RS20's. There was very little interaction between the levels. We got nice results.

Gamut was maybe not quite as good as Tom's sample but was the best I have seen as a preset.

I wonder very much if the calibration noticably improved the picture. That's a good thing. I did not have much time to really watch much but I am sure Buttabean will report if we made a difference.

What I saw looked really good. I think the RS40 is definitely sharper than my RS20. That was the biggest difference that I saw.

We also messed around with the FPD Benchmark disk and what the CMD did to motion. It was nice to see that the girl in the hammock scene no longer has the motion induced contouring issue. For that 1080i material, I think that the second DFI mode looked best. But, there was too much flicker for me with 1080p24 material. I think I would stick to plain old 24fps with no DFI or FI for movies.

Next time, I'll bring the RS20 and we can do a more thorough comparison.

The problem I have with the gamma adjustments is that even though they look right with a meter and calibration software, it may be a completely different animal with normal viewing material. I've done several custom curves with the RS40 and even though all of them looked great in Calman after hours of tweaking, program material would have bizarre issues that weren't there before like bizarre banding, colors and digital noise.

Sounds like your gamma curve is not actually smooth. It is probably a tool problem of some kind.

Kris Deering over in the RS40 owner's tread has investigated the service menu adjustments for CMS. These are not a full CMS set of adjustments, and are not described in my available documentation, but they do allow you to make some minor adjustments to the color points. Below is a copy of his post:

So I played with the mini CMS in the service menu. There are two adjustments that affect red and yellow. You can get the color points to be pretty close to 709 this way, but you can't get luminance perfect. The other two affect green, blue, cyan and magenta. The one colored green adjusts green and cyan the most, and you will have to find the best compromise of the two. I was able to get green pretty close to the right target point, but cyan is a bit oversaturated. The other adjustments affects magenta the most, with none of them doing a whole lot for blue. Unfortunately none of the adjustments does anything for luminance so again you'll have to find the best trade-off between all of them. Overall I was able to get most of the points closer to the spec with about the same level of delta for luminance, so only slightly better than before. If you want a completely accurate calibration, you're going to need an outboard processor.

Hi Ron,

I am a complete novice when it comes to video calibration. I haven't even read the Calibration for Dummies information yet. So I hope you'll forgive a very basic question.

I have an Onkyo PR-SC886 preamplifier which is virtually identical to the Integra DHC-9.9 that Kris Deering reviewed in May, 2009. In the review he describes an ISF video calibration feature.

Quote:

Integra has teamed up with the Imaging Science Foundation (ISF) to deliver some new video tweaks to the DHC-9.9 that I've never before seen in a processor like this. For years, ISF has been synonymous with video calibration and demanding accuracy from your video display. The DHC-9.9 incorporates several ISF modes, which let calibrators tweak a display's gray scale and gamma and set default viewing modes for different viewing environments. The video setup menus also have the typical picture adjustments, such as brightness, contrast, and color.

Someone with the right test tools can dial in the gray scale and color balance using the high and low controls for each color (labeled Brightness and Contrast here). But you can only make these kinds of adjustments accurately if you use professional test equipment, which is expen-sive. You also need the knowledge to use the equipment properly. If you don't have the right tools and knowledge, I'd highly recommend that you leave these picture controls alone. You could do more harm than good to your picture.

I was hoping that you as a very knowledgeable enthusiast, Kris, or one of the other professional calibrationists, wouldn't mind explaining, in basic terms, whether this ISF feature would provide any meaningful advantages when calibrating this particular projector with a very basic CMS.

I am a complete novice when it comes to video calibration. I haven't even read the Calibration for Dummies information yet. So I hope you'll forgive a very basic question.

I have an Onkyo PR-SC886 preamplifier which is virtually identical to the Integra DHC-9.9 that Kris Deering reviewed in May, 2009. In the review he describes an ISF video calibration feature.

I was hoping that you as a very knowledgeable enthusiast, Kris, or one of the other professional calibrationists, wouldn't mind explaining, in basic terms, whether this ISF feature would provide any meaningful advantages when calibrating this particular projector with a very basic CMS.

Thanks.

Larry

I'm not familiar with the specific set of controls your Onkyo offers. However, it sounds like they may be limited to only grey scale and gamma calibraton and not gamut (color points - saturation and hue for each of the primary and secondary colors). Since the RS40 does have controls to calibrate the grey scale and gamma there may not not be any advantage in using the Onkyo, especially since I assume it doesn't support HDMI 1.4 and thus could not be used to make adjustments to 3D video (this is the one mode where the RS40 will not let the user adjust gamma).

Here some linearity measurements with X3 and Radiance XS from 75IRE to 100IRE

My only concerns is the light loss in the first 220h of more the 40%!!!

With reports like this and a few others concerning that typically bad JVC bulb ageing problem combined with Tom H. measuring only 650 lumens I am really starting to worry that my dream of getting a JVC RS to work in my environment is not going to work.

If some here can give me a quick realistic gut check I would appreciate it as my pre-order for the RS40 may be coming up next week. My room is a 100% black box, (flat black painted ceiling, walls covered in duvetyne (aka commando cloth) and black carpet with no windows. My screen however is setup as a 12' wide 2.37 to 1 CIH scope screen where my 1.78 to 1 screen is about 124" diag or 108" wide. I have done some recent viewing and measurements to come up with what the min. calibrated lumens I will need to maintain a satisfactory level of brightness using my current projector. I have determined that at a minimum I will need 400 lumens, going less than that is simply too dull and I will not be pleased. Keep in mind that this yields about 7 foot lamberts on my 1.1 gain AT screen when in 12' wide scope.

Originally I was optimistically hoping that the new RS40 would put out between 800 and 900 calibrated lumens in 2D therefore leaving me with about 400-450 lumens after 600+ hours of bulb aging. I think 50% loss after 600 hours is realistic based on JVC history and what others are reporting on the current models. But if we are only getting 650 calibrated lumens this would leave me with about 325 lumens which will simply not do.

Was I too optimistic to assume 800-900 calibrated lumens out of an RS40?